Upgraded Yahoo Mail Offers New Features, Themes

Upgraded Yahoo Mail Offers New Features, Themes

Yahoo Mail's new look on mobile. Image Credit: Yahoo

To celebrate the 16th anniversary of Yahoo Mail, Yahoo is jazzing up the features of its mail service. The company is angling to make the experience “elegant and intuitive” across all platforms including desktop, iOS and Android.

Yahoo Mail’s new look on mobile. Image Credit: Yahoo

The first big changes includes the introduction of “conversations” for people who like to see emails grouped in threads. The concept is similar to what Gmail users experience – offering an entire conversation including replies in one place.

“Conversations” on a desktop. Image Credit: Yahoo

The Yahoo Mail interface is also changing. Search, star and delete functions are now “one-click” actions that show up when you hover over an email. The left-hand toolbar can also be collapsed to make more space.

Features previously reserved for premium Mail Plus customers are also now free – including disposable email addresses, enhanced filters and automatic message forwarding. Current Mail Plus customers can learn more here.

In an additional cosmetic upgrade, users can also now add themes, including curated Flickr photos, to a browser, smartphone and tablet.

“Themes” on a desktop. Image Credit: Yahoo

Choose a new photo theme in one place, and it will apply across all your devices. After all, your inbox doesn’t have to be a plain white box with text dropped into it.

4 comments

Anne Bristow

I don’t care for the new Yahoo interface, primarily because I sort my mail into folders, and the new style collapses the folder list. Also, navigation has been more difficult, not very intuitive. Thankfully, you can turn off the option to group items into conversations. (I never cared for that feature in gmail either.)

You can also opt out of the new mail “interface” at Yahoo: choose “Basic” in Settings > Viewing Mail, IIRC. This retains the folder list, but omits the ability to insert smilie graphics. (Frowny. Face.)